NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES

SKILL PREMIUM AND TRADE PUZZLES:A SOLUTION LINKING PRODUCTION AND PREFERENCES

Justin CaronThibault Fally

James R. Markusen

Working Paper 18131http://www.nber.org/papers/w18131

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH1050 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA 02138June 2012

We thank Peter Egger, Lionel Fontanie, Gordon Hanson, Wolfgang Keller, Keith Maskus, TobiasSeidel and seminar participants at the Paris School of Economics, ETH Zurich, UC San Diego andthe University of Colorado-Boulder for helpful comments. The views expressed herein are those ofthe authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies officialNBER publications.

© 2012 by Justin Caron, Thibault Fally, and James R. Markusen. All rights reserved. Short sectionsof text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that fullcredit, including © notice, is given to the source.

Skill Premium and Trade Puzzles: a Solution Linking Production and PreferencesJustin Caron, Thibault Fally, and James R. MarkusenNBER Working Paper No. 18131June 2012JEL No. F10,F14

ABSTRACT

International trade theory is a general-equilibrium discipline, yet most of the standard portfolio ofresearch focuses on the production side of general equilibrium. In addition, we do not have a goodunderstanding of the relationship between characteristics of goods in production and characteristicsof preferences. This paper conducts an empirical investigation into the relationship between a good'sfactor intensity in production and its income elasticity of demand in consumption. In particular, wefind a strong and significant positive relationship between skilled-labor intensity in production andincome elasticity of demand for several types of preferences, with and without accounting for tradecosts and differences in prices. Counter-factual simulations yield a number of results. We can explainabout half of “missing trade”, and show an important role for per-capita income in understanding trade/GDPratios, the choice of trading partners, and the composition of trade. Furthermore, an equal rise in productivityin all sectors in all countries leads to a rising skill premium in all countries, with particularly largeincreases in developing countries.

Justin CaronETH Zurich, Switzerlandcaronj@ethz.ch

Thibault FallyDepartment of EconomicsUniversity of Colorado at Boulder256 UCBBoulder, Colorado 80309-0256USAThibault.Fally@colorado.edu

James R. MarkusenDepartment of EconomicsUniversity of ColoradoBoulder, CO 80309-0256and NBERjames.markusen@colorado.edu

1 Introduction

International trade theory is a general-equilibrium discipline. Yet it is probably fair to sug-

gest that most of the standard portfolio of research focuses on the production side of general

equilibrium. Price elasticities of demand do play a role in oligopoly models and, of course, a

preference for diversity is important in all models, not just monopolistic competition. Income

elasticities of demand are, however, generally assumed to be either one (homothetic prefer-

ences) or zero (so-called quasi-homothetic preferences used in oligopoly models). The emphasis

on non-homothetic preferences and the role of non-unitary income elasticities of demand that

were so crucial in the work of Linder (1961) for example, largely disappeared from trade theory

over the last few decades.

Beyond a lack of focus on the demand side of general equilibrium, we have sharply limited

set of theoretical and empirical results on possible relationships between the demand and supply

sides of general equilibrium; that is, not much is understood about whether certain characteris-

tics of goods in production are correlated with other characteristics of preferences and demand.

The purpose and focus of our paper is to explore such a relationship empirically. In particular,

we explore a systematic relationship between factor intensities of goods in production and their

corresponding income elasticities of demand in consumption. If such a relationship does exist,

this can contribute to understanding a number of empirical puzzles in trade as suggested by

Markusen (2011). These puzzles include: i) the mystery of the missing trade, ii) a home bias in

consumption, iii) larger trade volumes among rich countries, and iv) a growing skill premium

with rising per-capita income.

We provide a discussion of alternative representations of non-homothetic preferences and

equations for the share of total expenditures across goods: (1) the linear expenditure sys-

tem, derived from Stone-Geary preferences, (2) Deaton and Muellbauer’s almost ideal demand

system (AIDS), and (3) what we will term “constant relative income elasticity” (CRIE) pref-

erences, recently used in Fieler (2011). While we present estimated income elasticities for all

three, we focus on the latter in the presentation of our benchmark model. We carefully account

for supply-side effects, which could potentially bias estimates of income elasticities. If rich

countries tend to have a comparative advantage in particular industries, consumption in these

industries might be larger (goods available at lower prices) and estimates of income elasticities

in these industries might be upward-biased if we do not control for such patterns of comparative

advantage. We provide a two-step estimation strategy by first estimating gravity equations in

each industry and then using the estimated parameters to structurally control for supply-side

effects in a second step.1 While the estimation of models with non-homothetic preferences has

1As a robustness check, we use actual prices data from the International Comparison Program (ICP).

2

been considered as challenging in the past, our method is actually quite simple to implement as

it does not rely on actual price data. Our two-step empirical strategy is inspired from Redding

and Venables (2004) and would be suitable for alternative standard frameworks.2

Our data is from the GTAP7 data set. It comprises 94 countries with a wide range of income

levels, 56 broad sectors including manufacturing and services, and 5 factors of production:

skilled labor, unskilled labor, capital, land, and other natural resources. This is an excellent

harmonized data set for our purposes, since it includes production, expenditure and trade data,

and input-output tables. However, the broad categories of goods and services make it not very

suitable for discussing issues related to product quality and within-industry heterogeneity.

Our results show that the income elasticity of demand varies largely across industries.

Moreover, income elasticities of demand are significantly related in both economic and statistical

terms to the skill intensity of a sector, with a correlation well over 60%. Accounting for trade

costs and supply-side characteristics reduces this estimated correlation but it remains larger

than 40% and highly statistically significant. The relationship to capital intensity is positive

but much weaker in economic terms and not statistically significant, consistent with Reimer

and Hertel (2010), while the relationship to natural-resource intensity is negative.

The results of the estimation are then used to assess the role of non-homotheticity in ex-

plaining emrpirical trade puzzles mentioned above and examine counter-factuals on simulations

of the estimated general-equilibrium system of equations and inequalities. In addition to the

income-elasticity / factor-intensity relationship, results include the following.

First, we can explain at least one third of the “missing trade” puzzle in the Heckscher-

Ohlin-Vanek framework. A systematic relationship between income elasticity of demand and

skill intensity in production generates a strong correlation between consumption patterns and

specialization in production. The correlation between supply and demand is 86% in the data.

While trade costs can explain about a fourth of this correlation, non-homotheticity is even more

important quantitatively. In terms of factor content, similar results show that non-homothetic

preferences can explain a large fraction of “missing trade” in factor services. By combining

non-homothetic preferences with trade costs, the variance of predicted factor content of trade

is reduced by more than 80% compared to the standard Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek framework.

Second, per-capita income helps us understand the choice of trading partners, in particular

the higher share of rich countries’ trade with rich-country partners. In our framework, per-

capita income contributes to understanding the composition of consumption across industries

which itself has large effects on trade. On aggregate, this implies an important role for per-

2Our model is based on Costinot, Donaldson and Komunjer (forthcoming) combined with non-homotheticpreferences such as in Fieler (2011). Our empirical strategy would also be consistent with alternative frameworksbased on Dixit-Stiglitz-Krugman model, as in Redding and Venables (2004), or Chaney (2008).

3

capita income in understanding observed trade-to-GDP ratios.

Finally, we conduct general-equilibrium simulations3 in which we raise the productivity of

all countries by 1% and 10%. As speculated on in Markusen (2011), this shifts demand toward

higher income-elasticity goods, which are on average skilled-labor intensive. The counter-factual

generates a rising skill premium (wage inequality) in all countries, but particularly in developing

countries.

Literature

Early papers exploring the factor-intensity / income-elasticity relationship are Markusen (1986),

Hunter and Markusen (1989), Hunter (1991), and Bergstrand (1990). A particular focus of this

literature is on the volume of trade in aggregate and among sets of countries, and its relationship

to a world of identical and homothetic preferences as generally assumed in traditional trade

theory. A general conclusion of this research was that non-homotheticity reduces trade volumes

among countries with different endowments and per-capita income levels, though trade among

high-income countries can increase. Matsuyama (2000) uses a competitive Ricardian model to

arrive at a similar prediction.

There has been a renewed interest in the role of preferences in explaining trade volumes re-

cently, including Reimer and Hertel (2010), Fieler (2011), Bernasconi (2009), Martinez-Larzoso

and Vollmer (2010), Simonovska (2010), and Cassing and Nishioka (2011).

Previous papers have emphasized the role of consumption patterns in explaining part of

the “missing trade” puzzle but our results present several contributions. In a recent paper,

Cassing and Nishioka (2011) show that allowing for richer consumption patterns play a more

important role than allowing for heterogeneous production techniques. They do not however

specifically estimate non-homothetic preferences to examine how much of the missing trade

puzzle can actually be attributed to non-homotheticity. Both Cassing and Nishioka (2010)

and Reimer and Hertel (2010) put an emphasis on capital intensity, which is positively but

not strongly correlated with income elasticity of demand, but do not differentiate skilled vs.

unskilled labor and thus underestimate the role of identical and non-homothetic preferences in

explaining missing factor content trade.4

Closest to our paper is Fieler (2011). She estimates demand- and supply-side characteristics

by combining a similar preference structure and gravity equations. However, she only uses

3Our GAMS program simulates bilateral trade, consumption and factor reward in general equilibrium for allcountries and sectors available in our estimation sample. We also provide an analytical approximation of theskill-premium-to-productivity elasticity expressed as a simple function of income elasticities and skill intensities.

4Among other papers, most of the attention has been put on the home bias or the border effect (e.g. Trefler,1995). Here, we directly estimate the border effect, or equivalently a home bias in consumption, in the first-stepgravity equation for each industry and control for it to compare homothetic and non-homothetic preferences.

4

aggregate trade flows between countries in her estimation and does not examine patterns of

consumption and trade across industries. Moreover, the specific structure of her model implies

that countries with higher average productivity have a comparative advantage in the production

of goods where the elasticity of trade flows to trade costs is higher (low-theta goods). On the

contrary, our estimation strategy allows and controls for any pattern of comparative advantage5.

We emphasize the role for non-homothetic preferences compared to homothetic preferences

while keeping the same structure of comparative advantage and trade-cost elasticities on the

supply side.

To our knowledge, our paper is the first to investigate a demand-side explanation for the

rising skill-premium. Previous research has emphasized the role of skill-biased technological

change (Autor et al, 1998), outsourcing and competition from low-wage countries (Feenstra

and Hanson, 1999). We find that, quantitatively, productivity growth combined with non-

homothetic preferences has a comparable if not larger impact on the relative demand for skilled

labor.

There are also certainly some topic areas where per-capita income plays a key role. One is

a large and growing literature on product quality where per-capita income clearly matters: if a

consumer is to buy one unit of a good, consumers with higher incomes buy higher quality goods.

In addition, the distribution of income within a country matters, and a fairly general result is

that higher inequality leads to a higher aggregate demand for high-quality products. We view

this literature as important and most welcome. Note that within-industry reallocations would

only reinforce the mechanisms described in our model. If high-quality goods are associated

with both higher income elasticities and stronger skill intensity, the same mechanisms would

apply for within-industry reallocations as for the between-industry reallocations described in

our paper. Concerning within-country inequalities, we find very similar results – if not stronger

– when taking into account and use data on different deciles and quintiles of within-country

income distributions.

2 Theoretical framework

2.1 Model set-up

Demand

There are several industries, indexed by k. Each industry corresponds to a continuum of

product varieties indexed by jk ∈ [0, 1]. Preferences take the form:

5See footnote 3 in Section 2.1 of our paper for more details.

5

U =∑k

α1,kQσk−1

σkk

where α1,k is a constant (for each industry k) and Qk is a CES aggregate:

Qk =(∫ 1

jk=0q(jk)

ηk−1

ηk djk

) ηkηk−1

Preferences are identical across countries, but non-homothetic as long as σk varies across

industries. Homotheticity requires σk = σ in which case we are back to traditional CES

preferences.

These preferences are used in Fieler (2011), with early analyses and applications found in

Hanoch (1975) and Chao et al (1982). To the best of our knowledge, there is no common name

attached to these preferences, so we will refer to them as constant relative income elasticity

(CRIE) tastes. As shown in Fieler (2011) and below, the ratio of income elasticities of demand

between goods i and j is given by σi/σj, which is constant.6

The CES price index of goods from industry k in country n is Pnk =(∫ 1

0 pnk(jk)1−ηkdjk

) 11−ηk

Given this price index, individual expenditures (PnkQnk) in country n for goods in industry k

equal:

xnk = λ−σkn α2,k(Pnk)1−σk (1)

where λn is the lagrangian associated with the budget countraint of individuals in country

n, and α2,k = (α1,kσk−1σk

)σk . The lagrangian λn is determined by the budget constraint: total

expenses must equal total income. In general there is no analytical expression for λn.

The income elasticity of demand for goods industry k in country n equals:

εnk = σk .

∑k′ xnk′∑

k′ σk′xnk′(2)

In particular, income elasticity for good 1 relative to income elasticity for good 2 equals the

ratio σ1σ2

and is constant across countries. Note that CRIE preferences precludes any inferior

good: the income elasticity of demand is always positive for any good.

6A noteworthy difference with Fieler (2010) is in the terminology. While her elasticity of substitution (στ )vary according to the “type” of good τ , our elasticities vary depending on the industry k. This difference ismotivated by out empirical objectives. Fieler (2011) uses aggregate data while we examine disaggregated tradeand expenditure data by industry. Since we are interested in differences in income elasticities across sectors,we treat instead each “type” as a sector. Instead of τ we denote sectors by k. Another small difference is thatFieler (2011) implicitly assumes that σk is equal to the elasticity of substitution ηk between varieties of thesame sector, but this restriction is not needed here.

6

Another important feature of income elasticities is that they decrease with income. A larger

income induces a larger fraction of expenditures in high-σk industries, Hence, the consumption-

weighted average of σk is larger (denominator in expression 2 above) which yields lower income

elasticities.

Production

We assume that factors of production are perfectly mobile across sectors but immobile across

countries. We denote by wfn the price of factor f in country n.

We assume a Cobb-Douglas production function for each sector with constant returns to

scale. Factor intensities are denoted by βfk and vary across industries but are assumed to

be common across countries. Total factor productivity zik(jk) varies by country, industry and

variety.

As common in the trade literature, we assume iceberg transport costs dnik > 1 from country

i to country n in sector k. The unit cost of supplying variety jk to country n from country i

equals:

pnik(jk) =dnikzik(jk)

∏f

(wfi)βfk

There is perfect competition for the supply of each variety jk. Hence, the price of variety

jk in country n in industry k equals:

pnk(jk) = mini{pnik(jk)}

We follow Eaton and Kortum (2002) and related papers and assume that productivity is a

random variable with a Frechet distribution. This setting generates gravity within each sector.

Productivity is independently drawn in each country i and industry k, with a cumulative

distribution:

Fik(z) = exp[−(z/zik)

−θk]

where zik is a productivity shifter reflecting average TFP of country i in sector k. As in Eaton

and Kortum (2002), θk is related to the inverse of productivity dispersion across varieties within

each sector k. Note that we also assume θk > ηk − 1 to insure a well-defined CES price index

within each industry (Eaton and Kortum, 2002).

We allow the dispersion parameter θk to vary across industries. In keeping with Costinot,

Donaldson and Komunjer (2010), we also allow the shift parameter zik to vary across exporters

and industries. This relaxes a key assumption made by Fieler (2011) that zθkik is constant

across industries, allowing more flexibility on the supply side and controlling for Ricardian

7

comparative advantage forces.7

Endowments

Each country is populated by a number Li of individuals. The total supply of factor f is fixed

in each country and denoted by Fif .

As a first approximation, each person is endowed by Fif/Li units of factor Ffi. This implies

that there is no within-country income inequality. We relax this assumption in section (5.4)

and examine how within-country income inequalities affect our estimates.

2.2 Equilibrium

A list of notations and variables is available in the appendix.

Equilibrium is defined by the following equations. On the demand side, total expenditures

Xnk of country n for sector k simply equals population Ln times individual expenditures as

shown in (1). This gives:

Xnk = Ln(λn)−σkα2,k(Pnk)1−σk (3)

where λn is the lagrangian associated with the budget constraint. To determine λn, we thus

need to take the budget constraint into account:

Lnen =∑k

Xnk (4)

On the supply side, each industry mimics an Eaton and Kortum (2002) economy. In partic-

ular, given the Frechet distribution, we obtain a gravity equation for each industry. We folllow

Eaton and Kortum (2002) notations, with the addition of industry subscripts. By denoting

Xnik the value of trade from country i to country n, we obtain a gravity equation:

Xnik =Sik(dnik)

−θk

Φnk

Xnk (5)

Here, Sik, which we call the “supplier fixed effect” is inversely related to the cost of production

in country i and industry k. It depends on the total factor productivity parameter zik, factor

prices and factor intensities:

7By assuming that Ti = zθkik is constant across industries within each country i, Fieler (2011) imposes moreproductive countries to have a comparative advantage in the production of high-θ goods. In other words, sinceθ governs the elasticity of trade to trade costs, Fieler (2011) thus imposes rich countries to have a comparativeadvantage in goods that can be more easily traded. We do not rely on this assumption.

8

Sik = zθkik(∏

f

(wfi)βfk)−θk

(6)

The parameter θk is inversely related to the dispersion of productivity within sectors, which

means that differences in productivity and factor prices across countries have a stronger impact

on trade flows in sectors with higher θk. In turn, we define Φnk as the sum of exporter fixed

effects deflated by trade costs. Φnk plays the same role as the “multilateral trade resistance

index” as in Anderson and Van Wincoop (2003):

Φnk =∑i

Sik(dnik)−θk (7)

The Φnk is actually cosely related to the price index, as in Eaton and Kortum (2002). We

have:

Pnk = α3,k(Φnk)− 1θk (8)

and α3,k =[Γ(θk+1−ηk

θk

)] 1ηk−1 (Γ denotes the gamma function)

Finally, two other market clearing conditions are required to pin down factor prices and

income. Given the Cobb-Douglas production function, total income from a particular factor

equals the sum of total production weighted by the factor intensity coefficient βfk. With factor

supply Ffi and factor price wfi for factor f in country i, factor market clearing implies:

Ffiwfi =∑n,k

βfkXnik (9)

In turn, per-capita income is determined by:

Liei =∑f

Ffiwfi (10)

By Walras’ Law, trade is balanced at equilibrium.

2.3 Implications: the role of non-homothetic preferences

2.3.1 Trade patterns

While preferences are identical across countries, large differences in income per capita can result

in large differences in consumption patterns when preferences are non-homothetic. In this

section, we illustrate how non-homotheticity affects trade patterns when there is a systematic

relationship between preference parameters and characteristics of the supply side, e.g. intensity

in skilled labor. This is supported by our empirical analysis, showing in particular that there is a

9

positive correlation across sectors between skill intensity (parameter βfk) and income elasticity

(proportional to σk).

Let’s first consider the case with no trade cost (assuming dnik = 1). In this case, the share

of consumption corresponding to imports from i in industry k is the same for all importers

(country n): XnikXnk

= Sik∑jSjk

. Moreover, prices are the same in all countries. Summing over all

industries, total import penetration by country i in country n is:

Xni

Xn

=∑k

(Sik∑j Sjk

)(α4,kλ

−σkn∑

k′ α4,k′λ−σk′n

)(11)

where Xn = Lnen is total expenditures in country n, Xni =∑kXnik is total bilateral trade

from country i to n, and α4,k is an industry constant incorporating common prices. The first

term in parentheses is the share of imports from i in consumption of k – in other words this

term reflects the comparative advantage of country i in sector k. The second is the share of

industry k in final consumption of country n.

Aggregate import penetration by country i in country n obviously depends on industry

composition of both supply and demand, but the latter has generally been neglected by pre-

vious work. If preferences are homothetic, σk = σ is common across industries and we obtain

that import penetration is the same across all importers n (for a given exporter i). When

preferences are non-homothetic and σk varies across industries, exporters with a comparative

advantage in high-σ industries have a relatively larger penetration in rich countries (low λn),

while exporters with a comparative advantage in low-σ industries have a relatively larger pen-

etration in poor countries (high λn). As we will show empirically, rich countries are those that

have a comparative advantage in high-σ industries and that it can quantitatively explain large

differences in trade volumes across country pairs depending on each partner’s income.

Note that trade costs can potentially provide an alternative expanation of why import

penetration varies across markets. On the supply side, proximity reduces unit costs. On the

demand side, consumption might be biased towards goods produced locally if their price is

lower (e.g. Saudi Arabia consuming more petroleum). The latter argument requires that the

elasticity of substitution be larger than one. These effects of trade costs reinforce the patterns

described above. In our framework, a general expression for import penetration of exporter i

in market n yields:

Xni

Xn

=∑k

(Sikd

−θknik

Φnk

) α5,kλ−σkn Φ

σk−1

θknk∑

k′ α5,k′λ−σk′n Φ

σk′−1

θk′nk′

(12)

where Φnk =∑j Sjkd

−θknjk by definition (equation 7) and α5,k = α2,kα

1−σk3,k is an industry constant.

10

In the empirical section, we thus need to carefully examine the distinct contribution of trade

costs and non-homotheticity.

2.3.2 Missing factor content of trade

One reason why comparative advantage may be related to consumption patterns is that the

income elasticity of demand is correlated with the intensity in skillled labor. Such a correlation

can also shed light on the “missing trade” puzzle, as we describe now.

Standard Heckscher-Ohlin models assume homothetic preferences. This assumption implies

that, under free trade, consumption shares over different industries are the same across all

countries. We show in this section that accounting for non-homothetic preferences can yield

very different predictions in terms of factor content of trade. In particular, it can potentially

explain why poor countries trade so little with rich countries even if their endowments differ

largely. The intuition is simple. When the income elasticity of demand is correlated with skill

intensity, consumption by rich countries is biased towards skill-intensive industries. If richer

countries have larger endowments in skilled labor relative to unskilled labor, it implies that rich

countries have stronger taste for goods that are more likely to be produced by rich countries. A

similar intuition applies to capital if the income elasticity of demand is correlated with capital

intensity and if richer countries are relatively more endowed in capital.

These intuitions can be simply illustrated in our framework. We define factor content

of trade Tfn as the value of factor f required to produce exports minus imports: Tfn =∑k βfk

(∑i 6=nXnik −

∑i 6=nXink

). After simple reformulations, we can decompose Tfn in two

terms:

Tfn = sn∑k

Ykβfk

[YnksnYk

− 1]

︸ ︷︷ ︸ − sn∑k

Ykβfk

[Xnk

snYk− 1

]︸ ︷︷ ︸ (13)

= THOVfn − TCBfn (14)

where Ynk =∑iXink denotes the value of production of country n in sector k, Yk =

∑n Ynk

denotes the value of world’s production in sector k, and sn denotes the share of country n in

world’s GDP. Note that we define factor content in terms of factor reward instead of quantities

(number of workers or machines).8

8Standard HOV estimation assumes factor price equalization. Under this assumption, both approaches areequivalent. When FPE is violated, for instance when factor productivity differ across countries, predicted factorcontent has to be adjusted for such differences if written in terms of factor units (e.g. number of workers ofmachines). No adjustment is necessary if we focus on values, i.e. factor supply times factor prices. This approachgreatly simplifies the exposition of the main intuitions and better illustrate the contribution of non-homotheticpreferences compared to homothetic preferences without providing too much details on factor prices.

11

In the bracket terms, the ratio XnksnYk

equals the share of consumption for k in country n

relative to the share of consumption for k in the world. The ratio YnksnYk

equals the share of

production in sector k in country n relative to the share of production in sector k in the world.

Homothetic preferences and free trade would imply that the second term in brackets is null:XnksnYk− 1 = 0. Hence, when preferences are homothetic, the expression above can be simplified

and yields:

Tfn = THOVfn = wfnFfn − sn∑i

wfiFfi (15)

Under factor price equalization, wfn is the same across countries, and the above expression

corresponds to the standard prediction of factor content trade in the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek

model. This equations states that the content of factor f in exports of a country n should equal

the total value of the supply of factor f in this country minus the value of the world’s supply

of this factor adjusted by the share sn of country n in world GDP.

Equation (15) is violated when preferences are not homothetic and XnksnYk− 1 differs from

zero. Equation (15) needs to be corrected by a consumption term TCBfn (where “CB” stands

for consumption bias). In particular, if relative consumption XnksnYk

is positively correlated with

production YnksnYk

, then TCBfn is correlted with THOVfn and predicted factor trade is smaller. It

can explain why trade in factor content is smaller than predicted by models with homothetic

preferences. In the empirical section, we verify that these two terms XnksnYk

and YnksnYk

are indeed

strongly corrrelated across countries and industries and that TCBfn is correlated with THOVfn

across countries and factors.

The consumption bias in the extended predicted factor content of trade expression above

can be reexpressed as:

TCBfn =∑k

βfkXnk − sn∑k

βfkYk (16)

where the right-hand-side reflects a difference between the factor content of country n’s con-

sumption and the average world’s consumption. For skilled labor, we show in the empirical

section that TCBfn is strongly correlated with income.

Again, trade costs might also explain similar correlations between supply and demand,

across industries and in terms of factor content. In the empirical section, we disentangle the

effect of each (trade costs vs. fitted non-homothetic demand) and show that non-homotheticity

plays an important role.

2.3.3 Skill premium

The correlation betwen skill intensity and income elasticity not only affects trade patterns and

trade volumes, but also has important implications for the skill premium. In particular, it can

12

generates a positive effect of productivity growth on the skill premium. The intuition is simple.

As productivity increases, people become richer, they consume more goods from income-elastic

industries which, as we show, are more intensive in skilled labor.9 This yields an increase in

the demand for skilled labor relative to unskilled labor and thus increases the relative wage of

skilled workers.

On the contrary, with homothetic preferences, uniform productivity growth across countries

is neutral in terms of skill premium (and trade patterns). Also note that international trade

is not key here. The same effect still holds in a closed economy. For a closed economy, with

only skilled and unskilled labor, we can derive the elasticity of the skill premium spn (wage of

skilled workers divided by the wage of unskilled workers) to TFP increase d log zn:

d log spnd log zn

=1

1 + ξn

∑k

(shHnk − shLnk)εnk (17)

where εnk is the income elasticity in sector k, country n, and shHnk ≡ βHkXnk∑k′ βHk′Xnk′

is the share

of sector k in the total employed of skilled labor in country n (and shLnk refers to to the share

of unskilled workers in sector k), and ξn is defined in the appendix.

We can see that this term is positive if income elasticity εnk is correlated with the demand

for skilled labor vs. unskilled labor (term in shHnk − shLnk). Hence TFP growths generates a

growth of the skill premium.

The term ξn reflects a feedback effect of the skill premium increase on the composition

of consumption. When the skill premium increases, the relative price of skill-intensive goods

increases, the relative demand for skill intensive goods tends to decrease and thus the relative

demand for skilled workers tends to decrease. We can expect this feedback to be small compared

to the direct effect and: ξn ≈ 0. This provides an approximation of the elasticity of skill

premium to technology:d log spnd log zn

≈∑k

(shHnk − shLnk)εnk (18)

Generally, this equation also provides a good approximation of the skill premium increase

even if skilled and unskilled labor are not the only factors of production. We will show later

how this approximation compared to simulated skill premium increases as a response to a TFP

increase.

In this expression, the effect of technology on the skill premium is larger for larger income

elasticities (ceteris paribus). As income elasticities decrease with income (or productivity), we

might expect this expression to yield smaller values for richer countries.

9Assuming that the evolution of income is not driven by an accumulation of skills, which can of coursemitigate the increase in the skill premium.

13

Although income elasticities are larger for poorer countries, the expression above does not

necessarily decrease with income. The second derivative of expression (18) w.r.t to productivity

is:d2 log spnd log z2

n

≈ −∑k xnk(εnk−1)2∑

k xnk+

∑k(sh

Hnk − shLnk)ε2

nk∑k(sh

Hnk − shLnk)εnk

−∑k

(shHnk+shLnk)εnk (19)

The first term corresponds to the decrease in income elasticity with income (which is referred

to as the “within” effect in Section 4.3), whereas the other two terms corresponds to changes

in the weights shHnk − shLnk (“between” effect). The between effect is negative if there is more

scope for reallocation of skilled workers than unskilled workers across sectors.10

3 Estimation

The goal of this section is two-fold. We first estimate income elasticities of demand and then

test for positive correlation between income elasticity and skill intensity.

3.1 Estimation of income elasticities: identification

Demand by industry (in value) is determined as in Equation (3) or equivalently Equation (1)

for individual expenditures. In log, this gives:

log xnk = −σk. log λn + logα2,k + (1− σk). logPnk (20)

where α2,k is a preference parameter to be considered as an industry fixed effect. In addition,

demand should satisfy the budget constraint, which pins down λn. The larger is income, the

smaller is λn.

If there is no trade cost (dnik = 1), the price index Pnk is the same across countries and

cannot be distinguished from an industry fixed effect. If richer countries’ consumption is larger

in a particular sector relative to other sectors, this sector can be associated with a larger

elasticity σk.

When trade is not free (dnik > 1), the price index Pnk plays a key role in controlling for

supply-side characteristics. As richer countries have a comparative advantage in skill intensive

industries, the price index is relatively lower in these industries. Conversely, poor countries

10Formally, the between effect is negative if and only if the variance of income elasticity weighted by skilledlabor is larger than the variance of income elasticity weighted by unskilled labor:∑

k

shHnk(εnk −

∑k′

shHnk′εnk′)2>∑k

shLnk(εnk −

∑k′

shLnk′εnk′)2

14

have a comparative advantage in unskilled labor intensive industries and thus have a lower

price index in these industries relative to other industires. As the elasticity of substitution be-

tween industries is larger than one, these differences in price indices in turn affect consumption

patterns. If we do not control for Pnk, we might conclude by mistake that skill intensive sector

have larger income elasticity.

Hence we put a particular care into correcting for supply-side effects through Pnk. We

proceed in two steps. The main goal of the first step is to obtain a proxy for logPnk. According

to the equilibrium condition (8) on the price index, logPnk depends linearly on log Φnk which can

be identified using gravity equations. Then, with an estimate of the price index (or equivalently

Φnk), we can estimate the demand equation (20) above.

As a robustness check, we estimate the demand equation using actual price data instead or

in addition to using log Φnk (Section 5).

Step 1: Gravity equation estimation and identification of Φnk

By taking the log of trade flows in Equation (5), we get:

logXnik = logSik − θk log dnik + logXnk − log Φnk

We estimate this equation by including importer and exporter fixed effects and approximating

transport costs dnik by a series of variables. We do not have data on transport costs by industry

and country pairs. We specify that transport costs depend on physical distance, border effect,

common language, colonial link and contiguity, as usual in the gravity equation literature:

log dnik = δDist,k logDistni − δContig,k.Contiguityni − δLang,k.CommonLangni

− δColony,k.ColonialLinkni − δHomeBias,k.In=i

Parameters δvar,k capture the elasticity of trade costs w.r.t. each trade cost variable var.11 It

is indexed by sector k: we allow the effect of distance, contiguity, common language, etc. to

differ across industries.

Incorporating the expression for trade costs into trade flows, we obtain:

logXnik = FXik + FMnk − βDist,k logDistni + βContig,k.Contiguityni

+ βLang,k.CommonLangni + βColony,k.ColonialLinkni + βHomeBias,k.In=i

11Note that dnik also captures a potential home bias in preferences. A home bias would be equivalent tomultiplying dnik by a scalar larger than one whenever trade occurs between two different countries, which isequivalent to the border effect in this framework.

15

where FMnk refers to importer fixed effects and FXik to exporter fixed effects, and βvar,k =

θkδvar,k for each trade cost variable var. Note that i refers to the exporter and n to the importer

(following Eaton and Kortum 2002 notations). Since all coefficients to be estimated are sector

specific, we estimate this gravity equation separately for each sector.

According to the model, importer and exporter fixed effects contain valuable information

and correspond to FMnk = logXnk − log Φnk and FXik = logSik. A first way to estimate

Φnk would be to use importer fixed effects. However, since we use Φnk as a means to capture

supply-side characteristics, it is arguably better to use supply-side variables to estimate Φnk.12

We follow a strategy developed by Redding and Venables (2004)13. Following Equation (7)

defining Φnk, we use the estimate of Sik and θk log dnik (using all transport cost proxies and

their coefficients) to construct a structural estimate of Φnk:

Φnk =∑i

exp(FX ik − βDist,k logDistni + βContig,k.Contiguityni

+ βLang,k.CommonLangni + βColony,k.ColonialLinkni + βHomeBias,k.In=i

)This constructed Φnk varies across industries and countries in an intuitive way. It is the sum

of all potential exporters’ fixed effect (reflecting unit costs of production) deflated by distance

and other trade cost variables. When country n is close to an exporter that has a comparative

advantage in industry k, i.e. an exporter associated with a large exporter fixed effect FXik

(large Sik), our constructed Φnk is relatively larger for this country n reflecting a lower price

index of goods from industry k in counry n. Note that Φnk also accounts for domestic supply

in each industry k (when i = n).

Such a method would fit various structural frameworks. If our model were based on Dixit-

Stiglitz-Krugman framwork instead of Eaton-Kortum, price indices by importer and industry

could be obtained in the same way. This would also account for the range of available varieties

when it is endogenous and would also fit a model such as Chaney (2008) that yield a gravity

equation in trade flows by industry.

Step 2: Demand system estimation and identification of σk

We now have an estimate of Φnk but the price index is proportional to (Φnk)1θk , not Φnk, and

θk is more difficult to estimate. θk corresponds to the elasticity of trade flows to trade costs

and thus appears in the gravity equation. However it cannot be directly identified from δvar,k.

For instance, the coefficient in the gravity equation associated with distance is the product of

12An alternative method using importer fixed effects yields very similar estimations of Φnk.13See also Fally, Paillacar and Terra (2010).

16

θk and δDist,k.

We pursue four different approaches: 1) we callibrate θk using estimates from the literature;

2) we do not impose any restriction on θk; 3) we assume that θk = θ is constant across sectors

and estimate θ; 4) in order to better illustrate the role of trade costs, we also estimate demand

elasticities by assuming that there is no trade cost.

In all cases the estimated equation is subject to the budget constraint to identify λn. For

any country n, we impose: ∑k

xnk = en

where en is observed expenditure per capita.

D1) In a first specification, we take a strong stand on θk and assume that it equals 4. This

imposes a strong link between income elasticities of demand and price elasticities. Alter-

natively, we take a value of 8 (specification D1’). The first choice is close to Simonovska

and Waugh (2010) estimates of 4.12 and 4.03. Donaldson (2008), Eaton, Kortum and

Kramarz (2010), Costinot, Donaldson and Komunjer (forthcoming) provide alternative

estimates that range between 3.6 and 5.2. The second choice (θ = 8) is in line with Eaton

and Kortum (2002) estimate of 8.28. Given our estimate of Φnk and the parameter θ, the

final demand system to be estimated is:

log xnk = −σk. log λn + logα5,k + (σk − 1).log Φnk

θ+ εnk

where α5,k is an sector fixed effect.

D2) In an other specification, we take an opposite approach and do not impose any constraint

on the price elasticity of demand. Given our estimate of Φnk, the final demand system to

be estimated is:

log xnk = −σk. log λn + logα5,k + µk. log Φnk + εnk

where α5,k is an sector fixed effect, and µk is a sector specific coefficient (to be estimated)

capturing a combination of σk and θk. µk is identified given how expenditure depends on

price levels proxied by Φ.

D3) As an alternative approach, we assume that θk = θ is constant across countries (as in the

first specification) but we do not impose any value. Instead, we use this restriction to

17

identify θ. Given Φnk, the final demand system to be estimated is:

log xnk = −σk. log λn + logα5,k +(σk − 1)

θ. log Φnk + εnk

where α5,k is an sector fixed effect.

D4) As a benchmark, we also estimate a demand system assuming that there is no trade cost

and prices are the same across all countries. The final demand system to be estimated is

then:

log xnk = −σk. log λn + logα4,k + εnk

where α4,k is an sector fixed effect capturing prices indices.

In all cases, given the inclusion of industry fixed effects, λn can be identified only up to a

constant. To see this, we can multiply λk by a common multiplier λ′ and multiply the industry

fixed effect αk by (λ′)σk . Using λkλ′ instead of λk and αk(λ

′)σk instead of αk in the demand

system generates the same demand and the same expenditures by industry. We thus normalize

λUSA = 1 for the US.

A similar issue arises for the identification of σk in specifications D2 and D4. In these

cases, σk can be estimated only up to a common multiplier. By multiplying σk by a common

multiplier σ′ and replacing λn by λ1σ′n , we obtain the same demand by industry and the same

total expenditures (maintaining the normalization of the lagrangian to unity for the US).

This is not an issue if we focus on the income elasticity of demand which equals the ratio

of σk to the weighted average of σk′ across sectors (weighted by consumption). For instance,

in the no-trade-cost specification (D4), we can verify that relative σ’s can be pinned down by

the formula:σkσ′k

=log xnk − log xn′klog xnk′ − log xn′k′

for any pair of countries (n, n′) and any pair of industries (k, k′). Ratios σkσ′k

and fitted consump-

tion shares are then sufficient to derive income elasticities of demand in line with Equation (2).

The above demand systems are estimated using constrained non-linear least squares.14 Boot-

strapped standard errors for the estimates of σk, income elasticities and other variables are

obtained by resampling the set of regions.

14We minimize the sum of squared errors on log consumption, weighted by world consumption by industry inorder to avoid putting too much weight on a few small sectors. Very close results are obtained by minimizingunweighted sums of error squares in logs or alternatively in consumption shares (see robustness section 5). Theoptimization procedure is implemented in GAMS and solved using the Conopt3 NLP solver.

18

3.2 Data

Our empirical analysis is almost entirely based on the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP)

version 7 dataset (Narayanan and Walmsley, 2008). GTAP contains consistent and reconciled

production, consumption, endowment and trade data for 57 sectors of the economy, 5 pro-

duction factors, and 94 countries in 2004. The set of sectors covers both manufacturing and

services and the set of countries covers a wide range of per-capita income levels. The list of

countries can be found in the appendix.

To estimate gravity equations (21) by industry, we use gross bilateral trade flows from GTAP

measured including import tariffs, export subsidies and transport cost (c.i.f.). Demand systems

are estimated over all 94 available countries using final demand values based on the aggregation

of sectoral private and public expenditures. Some sectors in GTAP are used primarily as

intermediates and correspond to extremely low consumption shares of final demand. 6 sectors

for which less than 5% of output goes to final demand (coal, oil, gas, ferous metals, metals n.e.c.

and minerals n.e.c.) are assumed to be used exclusively as intermediates and are dropped from

the demand estimations. We also drop “dwellings” from our analysis.15 We are left with 50

sectors (see Table 2 for the list of sectors).

Factor usage data, by sector, are directly available in GTAP and cover capital, skilled

and unskilled labor, land and other natural resources. There are some limitations however

concerning the skill decomposition of labor. While the GTAP dataset provides skilled vs.

unskilled labor usage for all countries, part of this information is extrapolated from a subset

of European countries and 6 non-European countries (US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Taiwan

and South Korea).16 Also, skilled labor is defined on an occupational basis for some of these

countries (e.g. US). In most of our analysis, we measure factor intensities by the average factor

intensities across all countries, but our results carry on if we simply based our factor intensity

measures on the subset of countries mentioned above, as shown in section 5.3.

Finally, bilateral variables on physical distance, common language, colonial link and conti-

guity are obtained from CEPII.17

3.3 Demand system estimation results

Results from the gravity equation (step 1) are very standard and more detailed results are

presented in the appendix section. In brief, there is significant variation in distance and border

effect coefficients across industries. As usually found in the gravity equation literature, the

15This sector is associated with large measurement errors in consumption and factor intensities.16See: https://www.gtap.agecon.purdue.edu/resources/download/4183.pdf17See: http://www.cepii.fr/anglaisgraph/bdd/distances.htm

19

coefficient for distance is on average close to -1, while the border effect is large. Coefficients for

other trade cost proxies are significant for most industries.

We now focus on the final demand estimation (step 2). Parameters to be estimated are λn,

σk and the industry fixed effects αk. Summary statistics are reported in Table 1.

With an R2 equal to 0.57, the specification with no trade costs (D4) already fits the data

well. The weighted R218 equals 0.90. The inclusion of trade costs in specifications (D1)-(D3)

significantly improves the fit, as the coefficients associated with Φnk are jointly significant. In

the unconstrained-θk specification (D2), we can simply test whether coefficients associated with

Φnk are jointly null which yields a F-stat of 16.07 and clearly rejects this hypothesis.

Table 1: NLLS estimation of demand: regression statistics

(D1) (D4) (D2) (D3) (D1’)Specification: θ = 4 No trade Unconstrainted Common θ θ = 8

cost θk

Correlation σk with D1 1 0.881 0.838 0.978 0.924specification (θ = 4)Weighted av. of σk 2.76 / / 1.49 4.47F-stat: σk = σ 4.62 19.60 8.63 5.05 4.07

Correlation log λn with -0.985 -0.999 -0.986 -0.986 -0.986log per capita income

θ (calibrated or estimated) 4 / / 1.17 8Average coeff for Φnk 0.507 / 0.532 0.518 0.486R2 0.731 0.568 0.607 0.596 0.609weighted R2 0.914 0.903 0.918 0.915 0.914Observations 4700 4700 4700 4700 4700

Notes: NLLS regressions: step 2 of the estimation procedure described in the text. Weighted by industry size(world’s expenditure by industry). Bootstrapped standard errors and F-test (100 draws).

Imposing homotheticity (i.e. common σk = σ across industries) yields a R2 = 0.52 (and

a weighted-R2 = 0.882).19 This is significantly lower. The F-stat associated with imposing

common σk across industries shows that homotheticity is clearly rejected in all specifications

D1 to D4 (third row of Table 1).

The estimated σk can be used to compute income elasticity estimates according to equa-

tion 2, using fitted median-income-country expenditure shares as weights.20 In our preferred

18with variance and average weighted by world production by industry19Allowing for trade costs with homothetic preferences increases the R2 to 0.58, which is still lower than the

R2 for non-homothetic preferences without trade costs (D4).20With CRIE preferences, the ratio of income elasticities between two sectors does not depend on the choice

20

Table 2: Estimated income elasticity by sectors

GTAP code Sector name Income elast. Std error Skill intensitygro Cereal grains nec 0.362∗ 0.040 0.135pdr Paddy rice 0.490∗ 0.150 0.061oap Animal products nec 0.498∗ 0.067 0.132osd Oil seeds 0.588∗ 0.158 0.119frs Forestry 0.596∗ 0.115 0.118v f Vegetables, fruit, nuts 0.601∗ 0.102 0.095ctl Bovine cattle, sheep and goats, horses 0.621∗ 0.078 0.164pcr Processed rice 0.654∗ 0.126 0.130vol Vegetable oils and fats 0.696∗ 0.066 0.217fsh Fishing 0.712∗ 0.092 0.124p c Petroleum, coal products 0.740∗ 0.047 0.313c b Sugar cane, sugar beet 0.777 0.206 0.091sgr Sugar 0.8∗ 0.142 0.221b t Beverages and tobacco products 0.802∗ 0.031 0.297tex Textiles 0.847∗ 0.055 0.231wht Wheat 0.854 0.139 0.117ely Electricity 0.923∗ 0.036 0.372ofd Food products nec 0.944∗ 0.036 0.268nmm Mineral products nec 0.944 0.072 0.281cns Construction 0.963∗ 0.023 0.294wtp Water transport 0.963 0.087 0.299cmt Bovine meat products 0.972 0.068 0.238ocr Crops nec 0.974 0.108 0.115mil Dairy products 0.990 0.046 0.248lum Wood products 1.001 0.085 0.248atp Air transport 1.028 0.047 0.313crp Chemical, rubber, plastic products 1.039 0.051 0.356otp Transport nec 1.046 0.052 0.296omt Meat products nec 1.051 0.075 0.233fmp Metal products 1.065 0.053 0.297otn Transport equipment nec 1.107 0.057 0.343ome Machinery and equipment nec 1.111 0.030 0.372osg Public Administration and Services 1.112∗ 0.019 0.503ppp Paper products, publishing 1.115 0.039 0.340trd Trade 1.119 0.036 0.308wtr Water 1.123 0.048 0.378lea Leather products 1.126 0.041 0.212mvh Motor vehicles and parts 1.135 0.030 0.341wap Wearing apparel 1.138 0.050 0.247cmn Communication 1.161∗ 0.049 0.485ros Recreational and other services 1.164∗ 0.042 0.475omf Manufactures nec 1.210∗ 0.037 0.279ele Electronic equipment 1.280∗ 0.050 0.358ofi Financial services nec 1.292∗ 0.054 0.546obs Business services nec 1.327∗ 0.039 0.504pfb Plant-based fibers 1.363 0.171 0.167rmk Raw milk 1.367∗ 0.077 0.152isr Insurance 1.378∗ 0.046 0.533wol Wool, silk-worm cocoons 1.543∗ 0.167 0.089gdt Gas manufacture, distribution 2.209∗ 0.160 0.362

Notes: Income elasticities evaluated using median country expenditure shares; NLLS estimations (specificationimposing θ = 4); bootstrapped standard errors; ∗ denotes 5% significance; total skill intensities.

21

0 .5 1 1.5 2Estimated Income elasticities

Gas manufacture, distributionInsurance

Business services necFinancial services nec

Plant-based fibersPaper products, publishing

Raw milkCommunicationPublic spending

Recreational and other srvMotor vehicles and parts

TradeElectronic equipment

Manufactures necMetal productsDairy products

Wearing apparelMachinery and equipment nec

Meat products necWater

Chemical, rubber, plasticTransport equipment nec

Leather productsTransport necConstruction

Wood productsWheat

Bovine meat productsAir transport

Mineral products necFood products nec

ElectricityWater transport

Oil seedsTextiles

Beverages and tobaccoPetroleum, coal productsWool, silk-worm cocoons

Crops necVegetables, fruit, nuts

Vegetable oils and fatsSugar

FishingCattle, sheep, goats, horses

ForestryAnimal products nec

Sugar cane, sugar beetCereal grains nec

Processed ricePaddy rice

No trade costsUnconstrained ThetaCommon ThetaTheta fixed at 4

Figure 1: Income elasticity estimates across specifications

specification (D1), estimates range from 0.36 for Cereal grains to 2.21 for gas manufacture and

distribution with a clear dominance of agricultural sectors at the low end and service sectors

at the high end. 30 out of 50 estimates are significantly different than 1 (at 95 %) as shown in

Table 2.

The distribution of estimated income elasticities is quite similar across specifications. In

particular, the choice of θ does not affect estimates of σk and income elasticities. As shown in

Table 1 (first row), the correlation between estimated σk in other specifications and estimated

σk in specification D1 (θ = 4) is always above 80%. This is also the correlation between income

elasticities among specifications since income elasticities are proportional to σk. Sectors where

income elasticities vary the most across specifications are the smallest ones in terms of final

demand (see Figure 1).

For robustness, these are compared with estimates using more standard demand systems in

section 5 and are found to be well correlated.

of the reference country.

22

3.4 Correlation with factor intensities

We now investigate the relationship between income elasticities and factor intensities across

sectors. Altough the implications of such a relationship will be best illustrated in section 4,

we first demonstrate its significance through simple correlations. Table 3 reports correlation

coefficients between skill intensities and income elasticities (or, equivalently, the σ’s) estimated

under different assumptions about trade costs and factor intensity.21

Our measures of factor intensity correspond to the ratio of skilled labor, capital or natural

resource (including land) to total labor input. They are computed including the factor usage

embedded in the intermediate sectors used in each sector’s production.22 As shown in section 5,

our results are robust to different measures of factor intensities. Our results are also robust

to different demand specifications. Table 3 reports estimations with CRIE preferences, while

alternative demand systerms are examined in section 5.

Table 3: Correlation between income elasticity and skill intensity

Dependent varriable: Income elasticity

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)Specification θ = 4 θ = 4 No trade No trade Unconstrainted Common

cost cost Theta Theta

Skill intensity 0.526 0.508 0.692 0.673 0.555 0.617[0.123]∗∗ [0.115]∗∗ [0.103]∗∗ [0.100]∗∗ [0.113]∗∗ [0.098]∗∗

Capital intensity 0.002 0.024[0.153] [0.126]

Natural resources int. -0.152 -0.139[0.102] [0.076]∗

Observations (sectors) 50 50 50 50 50 50

Notes: Dependent variable: income elasticity by sector evaluated at median-country income; beta coefficients;robust standard errors in brackets; ∗ significant at 10%; ∗∗ significant at 1%.

We find that skill intensity is positively and significantly correlated with income elasticity,

natural resources intensity is negatively correlated, and capital intensity exhibits a small weakly

21Table 3 displays heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors. As the dependent variable, income elasticity,is itself estimated, we alternatively use a feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) regression in which thebootstrapped standard errors from the NLLS estimations of income elasticities are used to construct weights(see Lewis and Linzer (2005)). The resulting standard errors are slightly smaller: for example, the estimate incolumn 1 is 0.116 instead of 0.123. The similarity between estimates suggests that the bias caused by the useof an estimated dependent variable is small.

22Total factor usage is computed using a Leontiev inversion of country-specific input-output tables as providedby GTAP

23

positive correlation. As expected, the correlation with skill intensity diminishes if we account

for trade costs and control for differences in price indexes. This is illustrated in Figure 2 and

also seen by comparing column (1) versus (3) in Table 3. This correlation remains however

particularly large and above 50% in most specifications.

Part of this large correlation can be explained by the composition of consumption into

services vs. manufacturing industries, with the former being generally associated with a larger

income elasticity. However, even after excluding service industries, the correlation is above 40%

in all specifications.

It is interesting to see that capital intensity would otherwise be positively correlated with

income elasticity, as found by Reimer and Hertel (2010), but this correlation is not as large as

for skill intensity (less than 10% in most specifications) and not robust to controlling for skill

intensity as shown in columns (2) and (4) of Table 3.

b_t

ctl

gdt

gro

lea

oap

ocr

omfosg

p_cpcr

pdr

pfbrmk

vol

wol

0.5

11.

52

Est

imat

ed in

com

e el

astic

ity

0 .2 .4 .6Skill intensity

No Trade CostsWith Trade Costs − Theta = 4

Note : Income elasticities evaluated at median country expenditure shares

Figure 2: Income elasticity and skill intensity correlation.

These results show a large correlations between per capita income and consumption patterns

depending on skill intensity. We emphasize the demand side. One may be worried, however,

that these results are driven by differences in skill endowment across countries rather than

differences in per capita income. In GTAP data, the fraction of skilled labor is indeed correlated

at 88% with per capita income. In order to check the robustness of our results with respect to

differences in education, we re-estimated income elasticities for subsets of countries with smaller

variations in skilled labor endowment (and still large variations in per capita income). If we

restrict the set of countries to those within the inter-quartile range in skilled-labor endowments

24

(eliminating countries with extreme quartiles in skill endowment), the correlation between

estimated income elasticities and skill intensity remains very high for the main specifications

(above 40%) while the correlation between per capita income and education is sensibly lower

(60% instead of 88%). A more extreme exercise is to select specific groups of countries where

the correlation between income and education becomes zero by construction. In these cases we

find again very large correlations between skill intensity and (re-estimated) income elasticity,

showing that our main results are not driven by differences in education across countries.

4 Implications for trade, skill premium and welfare

4.1 Consumption patterns and missing trade

Sector-level correlation between income elasticities and factor intensities can help explain a

part of the observed country-level correlation between relative specializations in consumption,YnksnYk

, and production, XnksnYk

. The higher this correlation the smaller the predicted trade. As

argued in sections 2.3.1 and 2.3.2, correlations between supply and demand affects trade both

in terms of volume and factor content.

We are first interested in the correlation between country’s specializations in demand and

production across countries and industries. We compare a combination of cases with and

without non-homothetic demand and with and without trade costs. In the first row of Table 4,

we calculate the correlation between YnksnYk

and XnksnYk

. The first term reflects production relative

to world’s production of goods k multiplied by country n’s share of world GDP. We use actual

data on production to compute this term. The second term reflects country n’s consumption

relative to world’s production of goods k scaled by country n’s share of world GDP. In columns

(1) to (4), we use fitted demand Xnk from our second-stage estimations and in column (5) we

use actual consumption Xnk.

In column (1), we impose homothetic preferences (i.e. common σk = σ across industries)

and assume that there is no trade cost. These two assumptions are made in standard Heckscher-

Ohlin models. In this case, the correlation is obviously zero since consumption patterns should

be the same across all countries. In column (2), we allow for trade costs. Trade costs generate

a positive correlation between consumption and production when the elasticity of consumption

(by industry) to price indices is larger than unity. The correlation that we obtain is 19% (across

countries and industries) and significantly positive at 1%. Though, this correlation obtained

with fitted homothetic demand is much lower than the 86% correlation observed in the data

(column 5).

Allowing for non-homotheticity significantly increases this correlation between supply and

25

Table 4: Correlation between supply and demand

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)Preferences: Homothetic Non-homothetic Data DimensionCorrecting for trade costs: No Yes No Yes

Correlation between supplyand demand

0 0.19 0.33 0.49 0.86 n x k

Correlation between THOVnf

and Consumption bias TCBnf

0 0.78 0.59 0.92 0.99 n x f

Normalized by country size 0 0.79 0.86 0.90 0.93 n x f

Corrected HOV slope test 0.38 0.54 0.44 0.65 1 n x f

Variance test:V ar(THOVfn −TCBfn )

V ar(THOVfn

)1 0.39 0.69 0.18 0.04 n x f

demand. Even if we assume no trade cost and common prices across countries, and even if

preferences are still assumed to be identical across countries, allowing for non-homotheticity in

preferences can generate larger correlation between supply and demand. As shown in column

(3), by using fitted demand from the no-trade-cost specification (D4) we obtain a correlation

of 33%. In column (4), we further account for trade costs and differences in price indices across

countries and we find a correlation of 49% (specification D1 imposing θk = 4).23 This is closer

to the 86% correlation observed in the data.

In terms of factor content, such correlations between consumption and supply should gen-

erate smaller factor content trade, as argued in section 2.3.2. Predicted factor content of trade

(PFCT) can be expressed as the difference between standard Heckscher-Ohlin PFCT, denoted

THOVnf , and a consumption bias term denoted TCBnf which is null in the special case where pref-

erences are homothetic and trade costs are null (see equation 13). Again we calculate THOVnf

using actual production data and TCBnf using either fitted demand (columns 1 to 4) or actual

consumption (column 5).24

The second row of Table 4 shows that trade costs can already explain a large correlation

between consumption and supply factor content even if preferences are assumed to be homoth-

etic (column 2). This correlation is 78% across countries and factors (against 0% if we assume

23Similar and even larger correlations are found for alternative specifications.24Here we measure factor content by assuming a common matrix for all countries, i.e. the same coefficients

βnk. Note that all variables are in values (e.g. wages instead of number of workers) which mitigates cross-countrydifferences related to differences in factor prices.

26

no trade cost). This is consistent with Davis and Weinstein (2001) who also attribute an im-

portant part of the missing trade puzzle to trade costs. In column (3), we find that allowing

for non-homotheticity but assuming zero trade cost can generate a 59% correlation between

HOV PFCT THOVnf and the consumption bias. Allowing for both non-homotheticity and the

presence of trade costs further increases the correlation to 92%, which is closer to the very large

correlation observed in the data (99%!). One may be worried however that these correlations

between THOVnf and TCBnf are driven by a few large countries such as the US and China. After

scaling down these variables and dividing by country size, the observed correlation in the data is

slightly lower (93% as shown in column 5 of the third row). After rescaling, our results exhibit

an even more important role for non-homotheticity. Allowing for non-homothetic preferences in

a zero-trade-cost framework (column 3) yields a larger correlation between supply and demand

than allowing for trade costs with homothetic preferences (column 2).

In the fourth row of Table 4, we regress measured factor content of trade on THOVnf − TCBnfwhere TCBnf is computed using fitted demand. Similar results are found whether it is rescaled or

not. By construction, the regression coefficient equals one when we compute the consumption

bias TCBnf using actual data (column 5). In the first case (column 1), we impose homothetic

demand and zero trade costs, which means that the regressor is simply THOVnf . In this case, the

coefficient is 0.38, which means that measured factor content trade (FCT) is only a third of the

predicted FCT that is not corrected for differences in consumption patterns. In column (2),

the coefficient is larger (0.54) which means that allowing for trade costs already closes the gap

between predicted and measured FCT. Allowing for non-homothetic preferences also improve

the coefficient (column 3 and 4) with of course an even smaller gap between predicted and

measure FCT when we also account for trade costs.

Finally, an alternative way to quantify the contribution of non-homothetic preferences to

the missing trade puzzle is to examine the variance of predicted trade in terms of factor content

(“variance test”). In the last row, we compute:V ar(THOVfn −TCBfn )

V ar(THOVfn

). When preferences are assumed

to be homothetic and trade costs are null, this ratio equals one since the fitted consumption bias

term is zero (first column). When trade costs are added, it considerably reduces the variance of

predicted factor content trade as we could expect. As can be seen, the variance is reduced by

two thirds just by accounting for trade costs. However, one can see that adding non-homothetic

preferences further reduces the variance by half (the ratio drops from 0.39 to 0.18).

Correlations and regressions across countries and factors can be also examined factor by

factor. We find that the use of skilled labor is key in explaining why non-homothetic prefer-

ences play such an important role. In Figure 3, we plot a measure of skilled-labor content of

27

BGD

BRA

CHN

DEU

EGY

ETH

FRAGBR

IDNIND

IRN

ITAJPN

MEX

MMR

NGA

PAK PHL

RUS

THA

TUR

USA

VNM

.1.1

5.2

.25

Ave

rage

ski

lled

labo

r co

nten

t of C

onsu

mpt

ion

4 6 8 10 12Log Per−capita expenditure

TrueFitted with trade costs − homotheticFitted with trade costs − non−homothetic

Figure 3: Skilled-labor content of consumption and per capita income

consumption against per capita income (in log) where the former is defined as:

∑k βfkXnk∑kXnk

(21)

We can either use actual consumption or fitted consumption with different assumptions. With

homothetic preferences and no trade costs, final demand for industry k in country n is pro-

portional to world consumption in industry k, and expression 21 should be the same for all

countries. When we allow for trade costs, rich countries tend to spend more in skilled-labor

intensive industries, even if preferences are homothetic, because goods are relatively cheaper

in these industries. We show however in Figure 3 that a better fit is obtained with both trade

costs and non-homothetic preferences.

4.2 Trade patterns

Can non-homothetic preferences explain why there is so small volumes of North-South trade

in comparison to North-North trade?25 Results from the previous section shed light on the

role of non-homothetic preferences in explaining net trade and its factor content. In particular,

our results are related to industry compositions of demand and production. Given that a large

fraction of trade is intra-sectoral, it is legitimate to ask whether non-homotheticity can also

play a role (quantitatively) in explaining patterns of gross trade volumes.

25see Fieler (2011), Waugh (2010) among others.

28

As argued in section 2.3.1, non-homotheticity can potentially explain differences in import

penetration across markets depending on the importer’s income and the exporter’s structure

of comparative advantage. In particular, if a country has a comparative advantage in high-

income-elastic industries (high-σk), such a country is more likely to export to rich importers

than developing countries.

This argument can be illustrated using equation 11 on import penetration in the simple

case with no trade cost. Using this formula, we can examine how import penetration by poor

exporting countries depends on the importer’s level of income. To be more precise, we compute

import penetration from devloping countries in market n:

XSouthn /Xn =

∑k

(Y Southk

Y Southk + Y North

k

) α4,kλ−σkn∑

k′ α4,k′λ−σk′n

where Y South

k refers to total production in industry k by developing countries (annual per capital

income less than $10K), Y Northk to total production by developed countries, and where αk, λn

and σk are estimated coefficients from the final demand equation (specification D4 assuming

no trade cost).

Since income elasticity (or equivalently σk) is highly correlated with skill intensity and

since developing countries have a comparative advantage in unskilled-labor-intensive tasks (the

correlation coefficient between skill intensity andY Southk

Y Southk

+Y Northk

is -0.8), we can expect developing

countries to have a smaller penetration in richer countries which consume more goods from

skill-intensive industries. Note also that import penetration does not depend on the importer’s

income if preferences are homothetic and trade costs are absent.

In Figure 4, we plot XSouthn /Xn as a function of the importer’s average income per capita

(in log). As shown in this figure, differences in consumption patterns across industries can

generate large differences in import penetration between rich and poor countries. Given our

estimated demand parameters, in a situation with no trade cost, import penetration by devel-

oping countries can vary from 50% in markets with the lowest per capital income (e.g. Ethiopia)

to only 20% in the richest markets (e.g. Luxembourg). Symmetrically, import penetration by

developed countries varies from 50% in the poorest markets to 80% in the richest.

Conversely, we can investigate what fraction of exports goes towards rich importers. Since

developing countries tend to have a comparative advantage in unskilled-labor-intensive indus-

tries, we can expect poorer countries to have a smaller share of exports towards developed

countries.

These results solely reflects changes in consumption patterns and do not account for trade

costs. As developed countries are closer to other developed countries and vice versa, trade costs

29

ETHKHM

LAONICCHN

ARGEST

SVN IRL USA LUX

ETHKHM

LAONICCHN

ARGEST

SVN IRL USA LUX

0.2

.4.6

.8Im

port

pen

etra

tion

4 6 8 10 12Importer per capita income (in log)

by poor exporting countriesby rich exporting countries

Note: No-trade-cost specification

Figure 4: Import penetration by developing countries depending on importer’s income

can also contribute to such a correlation between import penetration by developing countries

and importers’ income. An interesting question is whether these trade costs are sufficient to

quantitatively replicates trends in observed patterns.

Using estimates from both steps of our estimations, we can construct predicted trade flows

Xnik (from country i to country n in sector k) using the gravity equation 5:

Xnik =Sik

(dnik)−θk

Φnk

Xnk

where Sik,(dnik)−θk and Φnk are constructed using estimates from the gravity equation (see

step 1 of the estimation procedure) and where Xnk is fitted demand from the final step of

the demand estimation. We can compare fitted demand with non-homothetic preferences with

fitted demand imposing homotheticity (i.e. common σk = σ across industries). Accounting for

trade costs in both cases, we can examine for each country: i) the share of trade (import +

exports) with rich partners; ii) the ratio of trade over GDP.

Figure 5 plots the share of trade with rich partners (annual per capita income above $10K)

in manufacturing industries against per capita income (in log). As we can see, homothetic

preferences with trade costs can already generate a positive correlation since richer countries

are more likely to be closer to rich countries and trade with them. Not surprisingly, however,

non-homothetic preferences magnify this correlation. In particular, we can observe substantial

30

ARG

AUS

BRA

CAN CHE

CHN

EST

ETH

IRL

JPN

KHM

LAO

LUX

MEX

MYS

NIC

SVN

UGA

USA

ARG

AUSBRA

CAN CHE

CHN

ESTETH

IRL

JPNKHM

LAO

LUX

MEX

MYS

NIC

SVN

UGA USA

.2.4

.6.8

1S

hare

of e

xpor

ts to

hig

h pe

r-ca

pita

inco

me

coun

trie

s

4 6 8 10 12Log per-capita Expenditure

Fitted with trade costs - non-homothetic demand FitFitted with trade costs - homothetic demand Fit

Figure 5: Share of trade with rich partners (imports and exports)

differences in predicted shares for the poorest countries.

Since rich countries are also the largest markets in terms of GDP26, a country’s level of

openness (trade/GDP) is likely to depend largely on whether such a country has a large pen-

etration in the richest markets. Figure 6 plots the ratio of trade over GDP agains per capita

income (in log). We find indeed that the predicted ratio of Trade/GDP is slightly smaller for

developing countries when we allow for non-homotheticity in preferences. Conversly, this ratio

is larger for rich countries since they have a larger market penetration in other rich markets.

Note that these results are solely driven by differences in consumption patterns across

countries. We take the same trade cost and supply-side estimates in the homothetic and non-

homothetic cases. Hence, unlike Fieler (2011), these results are not driven by an implicit

correlation between trade cost elasticities and comparative advantage. Moreover, we find no

significant correlation between income elasticities and the elasticity of trade to distance (the

correlation for manufacturing industries is smaller than 10% in all specifications and not sta-

tistically significant), which means that richer countries do not have stronger preferences for

goods that can be more easily traded.

26Developed countries account for 80% of total GDP in our sample of 94 countries.

31

ARG AUS

BRA

CAN

CHE

CHN

EST

ETH

IRL

JPN

KHM

LAO

LUX

MEX

MYS

NIC

SVN

UGA

USA

ARG

AUSBRA

CAN

CHE

CHN

EST

ETH

IRL

JPN

KHM

LAO

LUX

MEX

MYS

NIC

SVN

UGA

USA

0.2

.4.6

.8T

rade

to G

DP

rat

io

4 6 8 10 12Log per-capita Expenditure

Fitted with trade costs - non-homothetic demand FitFitted with trade costs - homothetic demand Fit

Figure 6: Fitted Trade/GDP ratio across countries

4.3 Productivity growth and the skill premium

As argued in Section 2.3.3, non-homothetic preferences can also shed light on why the skill

premium has been increasing for a large number of countries (see Goldberg and Pavcnik, 2007,

for empirical evidence on the skill premium increase). When preferences are homothetic, an

homogenous increase in productivity in all countries should neither affect the patterns of trade

nor the relative demand for skilled labor. However, when preferences are non-homothetic

and when the income elasticity of demand is positively correlated with the skill intensity of

production, an increase in productivity makes consumer richer which in turn induces a relative

increase in consumption in skill-intensive industries (high-income elastic industries) and thus

raises the relative demand for skilled labor.

This is a new demand-driven explanation contrasting with previous studies that have fo-

cused on the supply side. In this section, we examine how much skill premium increase our

model can quantitatively generate. Two approaches are used: i) we simulate a 1% increase

in productivity (TFP) in all countries27 and examine how it affects the skill premium in open

or closed economies; ii) we use the approximation provided in equation (18) to investigate

differences across countries.

We use estimated parameters to simulate and solve the economy in general equilibrium.

Both demand-side and supply-side parameters are taken from our estimations (gravity equation

27The same elasticities are obtained by simulating a 10% increase in TFP.

32

and final demand estimation, specification D1). Note that, in our simulated general-equilibrium

model, factor prices and income adjust and slightly differ from oberved values, but not by much.

Equilibrium conditions are equations (3) to (10) described in section 2.2. Details are provided

in the appendix section.

ALB

ARG

ARM

AUS

AUT

AZE

BEL

BGD

BGRBLR

BOL

BRA

BWA

CANCHE

CHL

CHN

COLCRI

CYP

CZE

DEUDNK

ECU

EGY

ESP

EST

ETH

FINFRA

GBR

GEO

GRC

GTM

HKG

HRVHUN

IDN

IND

IRL

IRN

ITA

JPN

KAZKGZ

KHM

KOR

LAO

LKALTU

LUX

LVA

MAR

MDG

MEX

MLT

MMR

MOZ

MUS

MWI

MYS

NGA NIC

NLDNOR

NZL

PAKPAN

PERPHL

POL

PRT

PRYROU

RUS

SEN

SGP

SVK

SVN

SWE

THATUN

TUR

TWN

TZAUGA UKRURY

USA

VEN

VNM

ZAF

ZMB

ZWE

.05

.1.1

5.2

.25

.3E

last

icity

of s

kill

prem

ium

to te

chno

logy

4 6 8 10 12Log per-capita Expenditure

Figure 7: Elasticity of skill premium to TFP

Figure 7 illustrates the elasticity of the skill premium to technology when we simulate a 1%

TFP increase in all countries. Our simulations show that this effect is large and stronger for

poor countries. For instance, the elasticity of the skill premium to productivity is about 0.25

for China. With an annual productivity growth of about 8%, this yields an increase of the skill

premium of 20% every decade. For South American countries, the elasticity is also above 0.2.

With a 5% growth rate in productivity, this would yield a 10% increase in the skill premium

every decade. Such a magnitude is large and could explain a big part of the observed increase

in the skill premium.28 For India, our model could explain about half of the skill premium

28South American countries seem to have experienced large increases in the skill premium: 68% for Mexicobetween 1987 and 1993 (Cragg and Epelbaum, 1996), 20% in Argentina between 1992 and 1998 (Gasparini,

33

increase in he 90’s.29 Even for richer countries, the effect on the skill premium is not negligible.

For the US, this could explain about 10% of the skill premium increase during the 80’s; this

magnitude is comparable to the estimated effect of outsourcing on the skill premium in the US

in the 80’s.30

The main argument on the role of non-homothetic preferences does not involve trade. It also

applies to closed economies. In addition to the open-economy simulations, we also simulate a

1% increase in production for all countries in our sample, assuming infinite trade barriers before

and after the productivity increase. Interestingly, our simulated skill-premium elasticities are

very close to the results obtained in an open-economy framework. This is illustrated in Figure 8,

with the open-economy elasticity on the horizontal axis and the closed-economy elasticity on

the vertical axis. Simulated elasticities are all close to the diagonal line, with apparently no

systematic deviations.

0.1

.2.3

.4E

last

icity

- c

lose

d ec

onom

y

.1 .15 .2 .25 .3Elasticity - open economy

Closed economy - simulation Closed economy - approximation

Figure 8: Open-economy vs. closed-economy simulation and approximation

In a closed-economy framework, it is also possible to approximate the skill-premium elas-

ticity to TFP with expression (18). Using our estimates for income elasticities (εnk) as well

2004), 16% for Colombia between 1986 and 1998 (Attanasio et al, 2004). Given the growth rates during thecorresponding periods, our model could explain increases of nearly 20%, 4% and 16% respectively for Mexico,Argentina and Colombia.

29According to Kijima (2006), the skill premium increased by 13% between 1987 and 1999, while the growthrate was about 2.2% on average, and our predicted elasticity of skill premium to productivity is larger than0.25, thus predicting a 6.6% skill premium increase.

30In a conservative estimate, Feenstra and Hanson (1999) show that outsourcing can explain about 15% ofthe skill premium increase.

34

as labor shares (shHnk and shLnk) we can obtain an alternative quantitative prediction of the

skill-premium elasticity. These values are also plotted on figure 8 (red triangles). As it can be

seen, there is a very high correlation between approximated skill-premium elasticity in closed

economy with both simulated elasticities in closed and open economy.

By regressing the closed-economy approximations on the closed-economy simulated elastic-

ities, we find a coefficient of 0.741. This coefficient is smaller than one because of general-

equilibrium feedback: an increase in the skill premium yields an increase in the relative price of

high-income elastic goods which negatively affects relative consumption and the relative income

of skilled workers. This feedback effect is embodied in ξn (See equation 17 and appendix sec-

tion): this effect ξn is however broadly the same for all countries n. In fact, after multiplying

our approximated elasticity by 0.741 as an approximation for 11+ξn

, we obtain an extremely

good approximation of the simulated elasticity in closed economy (R-square of 96.5%).

Our formula from equation (18) also provide a good approximation of the open-economy

simulated elasticity. In a regression of the simulated skill premium increase in open economy

on the skill premium increase approximation suggested by equation (18), we also obtain a

coefficient of 0.74 with an R-square of 87.1%.31 Hence, our approximation is relevant and can

be safely used to examine differences in the skill-premium elasticity across countries.

Why is this effect larger for poor countries? As we have shown in section 2.3.3, the effect

on the skill premium strongly depends on the income elasticity of demand. These elasticities

decrease with income, which could explain why the effect on the skill premium may be smaller

for richer countries. While this mechanism plays a role, other effects are also present. To

illustrate this, we split the above skill-premium elasticity into i) an average effect; ii) a term

reflecting changes in income elasticity (within effect), iii) a term reflecting difference in labor

allocation across sectors (between effect); iv) and a covariance term:

∑k(sh

Hnk − shLnk)εnk =

∑k

(shHk − sh

Lk )εk︸ ︷︷ ︸ +

∑k

(shHk − sh

Lk )∆εnk︸ ︷︷ ︸ +

∑k

(∆shHnk−∆shLnk)εk︸ ︷︷ ︸Average Within Between

+∑k

(∆shHnk−∆shLnk)∆εnk︸ ︷︷ ︸Covariance

where shHk denotes the average of shHnk across countries n;32 εk denotes the average of εnk across

countries n; ∆shHnk denotes the difference between shHnk and its average shHk ; ∆εnk denotes the

31In this case, the coefficient is 0.746 with a standard error about 0.02 (open-economy simulation) against0.01 for the closed-economy simulation. The constant is not significantly different from zero in both cases.

32shHnk is defined as the share of sector k in skilled labor employment in country n, see Section 2.3.3.

35

difference between εnk and its average εk. From this decomposition (Figure 9), both the within

and between effects seem equally important in explaining differences across countries. While

the within-effect is clearly decreasing with income, as expected, the between effect has an

inverted-U shape and is highest for middle-low income countries such as China.

-.1

-.05

0.0

5.1

Diff

eren

ce to

ave

rage

effe

ct

4 6 8 10 12Log per-capita Expenditure

Within Between Covariance

Figure 9: Within and between decomposition of the effect on the skill premium

5 Robustness

We explore the robustness of our results in a variety of dimensions. To save space, all results on

the sensitivity of the correlation between skill intensity and income elasticity, our main variable

of interest, are summarized in table 5.

5.1 Price data

In section 3, income elasticities are estimated by controlling for supply-side characteristics

using a proxy price index Pnk which is constructed from the estimated Φnk (from the gravity

equations). Possible mis-estimation of this unobserved variable might raise concerns that our

income elasticity estimates are biased. To test for this, we use actual price data from the

2005 International Comparison Program (ICP) (World Bank 2005), an extensive dataset which

includes price indices for a wide range of products and countries. Despite mapping issues, we

36

are able to match ICP price indices to 38 of the 50 sectors and 88 out of 94 countries included

in our analysis.

The idea here is not to test wether the estimated Pnk perfectly match the actual prices

indices, as there are many reasons for them not to. Indeed, a regression of the log of the ICP

price index on logPnk including both country and sector fixed effects reveals a significant but

weak correlation (beta correlation coefficient = 0.072, p-value < 0.001).

Rather, we are interested in knowing if the inclusion of ICP price data in demand estimations

leads to significantly different income elasticity estimates.

A simple reduced-form log regression of final demand Xnk on both price indices (not shown),

with both region and sector fixed effects, reveals that the constructed Pnk have a stronger

explanatory power than the ICP index (beta correlation coefficient of 0.343 versus 0.051, both

p-values < 0.01).

Including the ICP price index in the estimation of CRIE demand parameters in a specifi-

cation similar to (D2) confirms that its predictive power is less than that of the constructed

Pnk. Indeed, resulting income elasticity estimates are closer to those obtained by ignoring

prices entirely (D3). Table 5 displays our correlation of interest when income elasticities are

estimated using ICP prices (column 2) and using both indices (column 3). We clearly find that

controlling for supply-side characteristics with our proxy price index Pnk has a greater impact

on demand estimates. Thus, without being a definite test of the validity of our price index

proxy, the comparison with external price data suggests that potential mis-estimation of the

Φnk would tend to bias our correlation estimates downwards, if anything.

Table 5: Skilled labor to income elasticity correlation - Robustness across specifications

Demand system: CRIE LES AIDS

Dependent variable: Log Expenditure Expenditure Expenditureexpenditure shares shares shares

Prices: Phi (θ = 4) ICP Both - - -

Region(s): (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

All 0.526 0.693 0.552 0.819 0.668 0.858With robust data 0.469 0.645 0.487 0.766 0.614 0.805

USA 0.390 0.497 0.333 0.629 0.394 0.630EU 0.529 0.564 0.442 0.703 0.580 0.719

Japan 0.489 0.642 0.536 0.760 0.748 0.829Observations 50 38 38 50 50 50

Notes : all income elasticities calculated using median country expenditure shares. All correlations are significantat the 1% significance level.

37

5.2 Alternative demand systems

In order to test how our CRIE income elasticity estimates stack up against other demand

systems, we compare them with estimates - generated using the same dataset - from two well-

known alternative demand systems which also exhibit non-homothetic behaviour: the linear

expenditure system (LES) and the ”Almost Ideal Demand System” (AIDS). LES is derived

from Stone-Geary preferences and is essentially an origin-displaced Cobb-Douglas function.

AIDS, first introduced by Deaton and Muellbauer (1980), is not derived from any particular

utility function, but has been widely used for its aggregation properties and its simplicity.

Under the assumption of identical relative prices across regions, these demand systems can be

shown to yield the following relationship between sectoral consumption shares and per-capita

expenditures:

LES : xnk∑kxnk

= αk + γk e−1n AIDS : xnk∑

kxnk

= αk + γk log en

Note that the budget constraint imposes∑k αk = 1 and

∑k γk = 0 in both cases. In each

case, this relationship is estimated by sector by minimizing errors in expenditure shares (non-

linear least squares subject to the budget constraint). For the sake of the comparison, we

also reestimate CREI preferences by minimizing errors in expenditure shares (whereas our

benchmark estimates minimize errors in log expenditures). The resulting estimates of αk and

γk are then used to compute income elasticities εnk with LES and AIDS:

LES : εnk = αk(γk + αke−1n )−1 AIDS : εnk = 1 + γk(αk + γk log en)−1

Figure 10 plots the distribution of these income elasticities against the CRIE estimates.

All estimates are evaluated at the median country per-capita expenditure level. Clearly, CRIE

estimates are in line with both of these alternative demand systems. Spearman coefficients of

rank correlation with CRIE estimates are 0.88 for LES and 0.85 for AIDS. Most importantly,

columns (5) and (6) of Table 5 confirm that the result of strong correlation between income

elasticities and skill intensity is robust across all three demand systems.

Figure 10 also reveals the weakness of the LES demand system : income elasticites are

very sensitive to income and converge rapidly to unity as income increases. Thus, even when

evaluated at the median country income (as in Figure 10), income elasticities exhibit small

deviations to one. AIDS performs better and yields a larger variability which is closer to that

generated by CRIE.

38

0 .5 1 1.5 2Estimated Income elasticities

Gas manufacture, distributionInsurance

Business services necFinancial services nec

Plant-based fibersPaper products, publishing

Raw milkCommunicationPublic spending

Recreational and other srvMotor vehicles and parts

TradeElectronic equipment

Manufactures necMetal productsDairy products

Wearing apparelMachinery and equipment nec

Meat products necWater

Chemical, rubber, plasticTransport equipment nec

Leather productsTransport necConstruction

Wood productsWheat

Bovine meat productsAir transport

Mineral products necFood products nec

ElectricityWater transport

Oil seedsTextiles

Beverages and tobaccoPetroleum, coal productsWool, silk-worm cocoons

Crops necVegetables, fruit, nuts

Vegetable oils and fatsSugar

FishingCattle, sheep, goats, horses

ForestryAnimal products nec

Sugar cane, sugar beetCereal grains nec

Processed ricePaddy rice

CRIE - No Transport costCRIE - Theta 4AIDSLES

Figure 10: Comparison of distribution of income elasticities across demand systems

5.3 Measurement of skill intensity

All results from the previous sections are estimated using sectoral skill intensity indices which

are computed as an average over all countries. We now test whether the main correlations are

robust to using skill intensity measured on the subset of countries with the most reliable data

(see Section 3.2). Table 5 displays the correlation of income elasticities to skill intensity using

different regional subsets of the GTAP data : all GTAP regions, the reliable regions, the US,

Europe (EU) and Japan. Altough, the correlation seems to generally be smaller for the USA

than for the EU and Japan, it remains large and significant for all regions.

5.4 Within-country income distribution

Compared to a hypothetical situation where income is homogenous within each country, within-

country income inequalities can reduce the observed variations in consumption patterns between

countries. For instance, income inequalities could explain why it is possible to find luxurious

39

cars in Africa (as other high-income elastic goods), while this type of goods is clearly not

purchased by any individual with the average income of an African country.

Empirically, income inequalities create a downward bias in the dispersion of estimated

income elasticities if we fail to take these inequalities into account (i.e. it biases our estimated

income elasticities towards unity). Conversely, accouting for within-country inequalities should

reinforce the differences in estimated income elasticities across sectors: it would be otherwise

difficult to explain the large differences in observed consumption patterns across countries.

To confirm this intuition and test the sensitivity of our results to the inclusion of within-

country inequalities, we rely as in Fieler (2011) on World Bank data describing the share of

total income held by different percentiles of the population. Available data covers 7 income

classes (the first two and last two deciles, as well as the 3 middle quintiles) and 89 of the 94

countries in our sample.

The estimation procedure in section 3 is modified to allow for 7 representative consumers

in each country (each representing one population quintile or decile). As expected, resulting

income elasticity estimates exhibit larger variations across sectors, although the differences

are very small : the mean absolute deviations from one increases from 0.225 to 0.23833. The

correlation between the two series is 0.995.

Correspondingly, the correlation of these income elasticity estimates with skill intensity

increases slightly (from 0.488 to 0.534). Thus, accounting for within-country dispersion in

incomes increases the estimated effect of non-homotheticity and makes our results stronger.

However, given the small magnitude of the bias, we are comfortable with using the estimates

from section 3 for counterfactual analyses.

5.5 Intermediate goods

Estimation with intermediate goods The model above does not explicitly account for in-

termediate goods. In all the above, we estimate the gravity equation using gross trade flows

and we estimate the demand equation using final consumption. This approach is however con-

sistent with a model that does account for intermediate goods under some similarity conditions

between final and intermediate goods within each industry.

With intermediate goods, we need to differentiate final demand Dnk from total absorption

Xnk which also includes demand for goods used as intermediates. While the data allows us to

separately observe final demand from intermediates goods by industry and destination country,

we can only observe trade flows by industry, pooling final goods and intermediate goods to-

gether. Hence, it is not possible to separately identify a country’s productivity for final goods

33comparing estimates generated with the comparable set of 89 countries

40

vs. intermediate goods within the same industry. However, if we assume that goods within

the same industry are produced with similar technics (i.e. same average productivity draw and

same use of inputs), we obtain a common supply term Sik for both final goods and intermediate

goods. If we further assume that trade costs vary by industry but do not depent on the type

of goods within an industry, then we obtain again a gravity equation as in equation 5:

Xnik =Sik(dnik)

−θk

Φnk

Xnk

where Xnk now refers to total absorption and not only final demand. Again, the supplier effect

Sik reflects the cost of producing in industry k in country i. This equation can also be estimated

as in equation (21), with importer and exporter fixed effects to account for Sik and Xnk. As in

the model without intermediate goods, we can retrieve the price index (Φnk to be more precise)

by using exporter fixed effects and gravity coefficients.

In terms of final demand, equation 3 is verified by Dnk instead of Xnk. If xnk (individual

consumptin) now denotes final consumption per capita (Dnk/Ln), we find that xnk verifies the

same demand equations are satisfied and that these equations can be estimated in the same

way. Hence this justifies why we use information on final demand to estimate the final demand

equation (2nd step) while we use total trade flows to estimate gravity equations (1st step).

Counter-factuals with intermediate goods. While our estimation strategy is consistent

with a model that incorporates intermediate goods, general equilibrium simulations (as in

Section 4.3) need to be amended to account for the use of intermediate goods and inter-industry

linkages. With intermediate goods, the effect of productivity growth on the skill premium can

be larger or smaller depending on the specification.

First, the effect of productivity shocks on production is magnified in a model with interme-

diate goods. This is can be simply formalized as in the input-output literature as a multiplier

effect (see Fally 2012): the longer the production chain, the larger is the effect of productivity

on output. This effect also mechanically magnifies the effect of productivity growth on the skill

premium.

If we assume that the productivity shock only affect the productivity of factors instead of

all inputs (factors plus intermediate goods), the multiplier effect is then neutralized. If we

further assume that output in each sector is a Cobb-Douglas production function in factors

and intemediate goods from other sectors (see appendix section for details), we can generalize

equation (18) and show that the elasticity of the skill premium to productivity (in a closed

economy) is now:∂ log spn∂ log zn

≈∑k

(shHnk − shLnk)εtotnk

41

where zn is an overall productivity shifter and where εtotnk (which stands for “total” income

elasticities) is defined as a weighted average of income elasticity of demand in upstream sectors:

εtotnk =

∑k′ γk′kDnk′εnk′∑k′ γk′kDnk′

with Dnk′ denoting the final consumption of good k′ and γk′k denoting the coefficient of the

Leontief inverse matrix.34 In other words, the effect of productivity also depends on the skill

intensities of other industries required to produce intermediate goods. As the variance of “total”

income elasticities across sectors is smaller than for usual income elasticities of demand, the

overall effect of productivity on the skill premium should be smaller in this case.35

6 Summary and conclusions

We begin the paper with an assertion that a large proportion of both theoretical and empirical

research on international trade focuses on the production side of general equilibrium. The

purpose of the paper is then to demonstrate that an examination of the role of demand can

contribute to explaining a number of persistent puzzles long debated by trade economists. In

particular, we are interested in the relationship between certain systematic characteristics of

demand and characteristics of goods and services in production.

Most general-equilibrium models of trade assume identical and homothetic preferences

across countries. But this assumption seems sharply contradicted by any household budget

study we are aware of. While preferences surely differ across households within countries and

at a broad aggregate level across countries, it is very clear from budget studies that there

is a systematic dependence of expenditures shares across goods and services as a function of

per-capita income. This is our starting point: we assume that preferences are identical but

non-homothetic across countries. In this case, goods and services differ in their income elas-

ticities of demand or alternatively budget expenditure shares are closely related to per-capita

income.

The first empirical task is to estimate a non-homothetic preference model and then back

out income elasticities of demand. Both economically and statistically, we find large deviations

of these elasticities from the unitary values implied by homothetic preferences. The next step

in this analysis is to relate these income elasticities of demand to factor intensities of goods in

34Coefficients of matrix (I−M)−1 where M denotes the matrix of direct input-output requirement coefficients.35Note however that intemediate goods required to produce skill-intensive goods tend to be skill-intensive as

well, and therefore these “total” elasticities of demand do not differ greatly from the usual income elasticities.In fact, the correlation between “total” elasticities and skill intensity is even stronger and increases to 70.0%.

42

production. Here we find a high, positive correlation (higher than 40 percent) between a good’s

income elasticity of demand and it’s skilled-labor intensity in production. This correlation is

robust to the inclusion of trade costs and other factors. The percentage of a country’s labor

force that is skilled is, in turn, highly correlated (about 88 percent) with per-capita income. In

addition to this correlation between income elasticity and skill intensity and because of it, we

find a significant correlation between demand and supply across goods and services within a

country. Again, this controls for trade costs and is not largely driven by these costs.

We then illustrate several implications by these differences in income elasticities. Our first

results assess the contribution of non-homothetic preferences (and their relationship to factor

intensities) to the “missing trade” puzzle. Our finding is that we can explain about one third

or more of missing trade. This is driven by the supply-demand correlation within countries

which is absent with homothetic preferences. Here, we find countries relatively specialized in

consuming the same goods that they are specialized in producing.

A second set of results relate to trade patterns and trading partners. Our estimation demon-

strated that high-income countries have a comparative advantage in high-income-elasticity

goods and services, because these goods are skilled-labor intensive and because the high-income

countries are skilled-labor abundant. This suggests that rich countries are more like to export

to other rich countries and we verify that this is the case. Since rich countries are also the

largest markets in terms of GDP, a country’s level of trade/GDP is likely to depend largely

on whether such a country has a large penetration into the richest markets. But the largest

penetrations into rich markets are by other rich countries as just note. We demonstrate that

richer countries have higher trade to GDP ratios, and that this relationship is stronger under

non-homothetic demand.

A final set of results shed light on a heated debate from the 1990s: the growing gap between

skilled and unskilled wages, where the two main hypotheses both focused on the supply side

of the economy. One was a Stolper-Samuelson argument coming from increased import pene-

tration by unskilled-labor-abundant low-income countries into high-income ones, and the other

focused on skill-biased technical change. Our simulations show that a uniform Hicks-neutral

productivity improvement, equal across all sectors and all countries, leads to an increase in

the skill premium in all countries. The mechanism is straightforward: higher per-capita in-

come shifts demand toward high-income-elasticity goods, which are skilled-labor intensive. This

drives up the relative wage of skilled labor in general equilibrium.

43

Appendix

Notations

Xnk: Total expenditures of country n for sector k

xnk: Individual expenditures in country n for sector k

Xnik: Value of trade FROM country i TO country n in sector k (inverting n and i iscounter-intuitive but follows Eaton and Kortum, 2002)

en: Income in country n

Li: Population in country i

Ffn: Exogenous supply of factor f in country n.

wfn: Price of factor f in country n

zik: TFP in country i in sector k.

Sik: variable reflecting average unit costs (power −θ) in sector k in country i (takingfactor prices into account).

βfk: share of factor f in total cost in sector k (assuming a Cobb-Douglas productionfunction)

σk: Parameters from preferences reflecting relative income elasticity.

ηk: Elasticity of substitution between varieties within industry k.

θk: Technology parameter inversely related to productivity dispersion in sector k.

Pnk: CES price index in country n for goods from sector k

λn: Lagrangian multiplier for the budget constraint for consumers in country n.

dnik: “Iceberg” transport costs between n and i in sector k.

Proof of equations (17) and (18)

Equation 18 is an approximation for a closed economy by neglecting feedback effects of the skill

premium increase on relative prices. By taking nominal income as the numeraire (thus being

constant), this amount to state that changes in prices are driven by changes in productivity.

44

As we focus on one economy, we drop country subscripts. We examine the effect of a

homogenous productivity (TFP) increase across alll sectors: zk = z. Hence:

pk ≈ −z

where v = dvv

refers to the relative change for any variable v.

Taking first differences in demand, we obtain:

xk = −σkλ+ (1− σk)pk = −σkλ+ (σk − 1)z

We need to solve for the change in the budget constraint lagrangian λ. We therefore take

the first difference of the budget constraint. Normalizing nominal income to a constant, the

following condition must be satisfied:

∑k

xkxk = 0

Inserting demand into the budget constraint, we obtain an expression for the change in la-

grangian:

λ =

∑k (σk − 1)xk∑

k σkxkz

After incorporating the solution for λ into the change in demand, we obtain:

xk = z

(−σk

∑k′ (σk′ − 1)xk′∑k′ σk′xk′

+ (σk − 1)

)= z

(σk∑k′ xk′∑

k′ σk′xk′− 1

)

Using equation (2) for the income elasticity: εk =σk∑

k′ xk′∑k′ σk′xk′

, we obtain:

xk = z(εk − 1)

We can see in this expression that an improvement in productivity has a similar effect as an

increase in income (keeping prices constant as a first approximation). In particular, demands

increases more for income-elastic goods.

Having the change in demand for goods, we can now examine the change in the relative

demand for skilled labor. We take the first difference of demand for skilled and unskilled labor.

In terms of skilled wages:

h =

∑k xkβkxk∑k βkxk

=∑k

xkshHk (22)

45

In terms of unskilled wages:

w =

∑k xk(1− βk)xk∑k (1− βk)xk

=∑k

xkshLk (23)

Looking for an expression for the increase in skill premium, s = h− w, we get:

s = z∑k

(shHk − shLk )(εk − 1) = z∑k

(shHk − shLk )εk − z∑k

(shHk − shLk ) = z∑k

(shHk − shLk )εk

Hence the elasticity of the skill premium to the TFP improvement is:

s

z=∑k

(shHk − shLk )εk

General formula

Let’s now prove equation (17). We continue taking nominal income as the numeraire. This

imposes that average wage increase weighted by the corresponding:

(∑k

xkβk)h+ (∑k

xk(1− βk))w = 0

Turning to prices, we now consider the effect of factor prices on goods prices. Taking first

differences, we get:

pk = −z + βkh+ (1− βk)w

Given the constrained relationship between skilled and unskilled wages, we obtain:

pk = −z + ∆βks

where ∆βk = βk −∑

k′ xnk′βk′∑k′ xnk′

and reflects the skill intensity of sector k compared to average

skill intensity. As in the proof of equation (18), we combine this expression with demand and

the budget constraint. We obtain the lagrangian:

λ =

(∑k (σk − 1)xk∑

k σkxk

)z −

(∑k σk∆βkxk∑k σkxk

)s

Reincorporating the lagrangian into the demand equation, we obtain:

xk = (εnk − 1)z −[(σk − 1)∆βk − σk

∑k′ σk′∆βk′xk′∑

k′ σk′xk′

]s

46

Denoting ak the term into bracket above, we obtain ξn by weighted ak by shHk − shLk and

rearranging and adding the country subscript:

ξn =(∑k xnkβkσk)(

∑k xnk)

(∑k xnkβk)(

∑k xnk(1− βk))

[∑k xnkβk∆βk(σk − 1)∑

k xnkβkσk−∑k xnk∆βk(σk − 1)∑

k xnkσk

]

Gravity equation estimates

Table 6 below presents the results of the gravity equation estimations (equation 21). The

first column shows the average estimated coefficient across industries while the second column

shows the standard deviation of the coefficient estimate across industries. These standard errors

reflect the variations of the coefficients across industries but do not reflect measurement errors:

all coefficient estimates are significant at the 1% level for most industries.

Table 6: Coefficients from the gravity equation estimations

Mean of SD ofestimated coeffs estimated coeffs

Variable: across industries across industries

Distance (log) -0.941 0.504Home bias 4.545 1.982Contiguity 0.518 0.488Common lang. 0.378 0.305Colonial link 0.171 0.444

Exporter FE YesImporter FE YesNb. of industries 50

Notes: Poisson regressions; dependent variable: trade flows; step 1 ofthe estimation procedure described in the text. The coefficient above areestimated separately for each industry.

Simulation equations

We have in hand data or estimates for the following variables that can be taken as exogenous:36

36Concerning factor prices we assume that they equal one in the data, which implicitely rescale endowments;this does not matter anyway because the change in factor prices should correspond to the change in factordemand assuming that factor endowment is exogenous and constant.

47

Ln from GTAP

σk estimated in the last stage

µk estimated in the last stage

αk estimated in the last stage

Fif estimated as the value spent on factors in the data∑n,k βk,fXnik

zik estimated in the grativy equations as Sik(taken at the power1/θ)

τnik estimated in the gravity equations (taken at the power1/θ)

Our demand-parameter estimates are obtained from specification D1 assuming θ = 4. All

other variables are simulation outcomes. We need to solve for: λn, en, Xnk, Xnik, wnf and Sik.

Each equation is associated with the corresponding variable for the mixed-complementarity

solver in GAMS:

Bilateral pricing (associated withXnik) : τnikT−1ik

∏f (wfi)

βfk ≥ pnik

Trade (associated withpnik) : Xnik =p−θnik∑jp−θnjk

Xnk

Price index (associated withXnk) :(∑

j p−θnjk

)− 1θ ≥ Pnk

Total demand by sector (coupled withPnk) : Xnk = Ln(λn)−σkα6,k(Pnk)1−σk

Budget constraint (associated withλn) : Lnen =∑kXnk

Factor market clearing (associated withwfi) : Ffiwfi =∑n,k βfkXnik

Per capita income (associated withen) : Liei =∑f Ffiwfi

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